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Support >
How
to fix Hard Disk errors
Microsoft Windows
comes with built-in utilities to check hard drives
for errors. Hard drives that are formatted using the
FAT32 file system should be checked for errors about
once a month. For hard drives that are formatted
using the NTFS file system automatically undergo a
basic error check on startup so this process isn't
needed unless a problem is suspected.
To find out what type of file system your hard drive
is using, look at the General tab in the Local Disk
Properties box. This box can be accessed by opening
Windows Explorer, right-clicking the drive in
question and choosing Properties from the menu list.
To use the disc checking tool, you will need to give
the utility exclusive access to the hard drive. This
means no other programs, including Windows, can be
running while the utility is running. A prompt box
will let you know this and with your okay will
restart the system and run its tests.
Close all open programs and save your data. To
access the Disk Error Checking Tool, go to My
Computer and right click on the hard drive you want
to check, in most cases this is the C: Drive. When
you right-click this, a menu appears with options.
Choose Properties from the list.
The Local Disk Properties Box opens. Click on the
Tools tab as shown below.
Here you will see the Error Checking Tool and the
Defragmentation Tool. Click on the Check Now box in
the Error Checking section.
Two options are available in this utility. The first
will automatically fix file system errors and is the
recommended choice for most users. If you're an
advanced user and want to see the errors the utility
finds before fixing them, leave this box unchecked.
The second choice will scan for bad sectors and
attempt to recover any bad sectors found in the hard
drive. This choice cannot actual fix any physical
damage to a hard drive but it may be able to move
files from the bad section to a good section,
preserving your data.
In order to proceed, you will need to give the Disk
Checking utility access to your system. By clicking
Yes to the above dialogue box, you are agreeing to
let the disk check happen on your next startup. Go
ahead and click Yes and reboot your PC to allow the
disk check to happen right away.
It can take a great deal of time for this procedure
to complete, sometimes up to thirty or more minutes
depending on the options selected and the state of
the hard drive, so make sure to plan on performing
the check when you don't need to use the PC for a
while. You'll see a blue screen as the system checks
your hard drive with an option to stop the scan and
proceed with boot up. This gives you the chance to
skip the scheduled scan for now and continue booting
up the PC. If you don't skip the scan, the error
check will verify files and folders and display the
progress as a percentage of completion. Next it will
verify the free space.
Once complete, the system will boot up as normal.
Another way you can check your disk for errors is to
start Check Disk from the command prompt. Simply go
to the Start Button, choose Run, type in Chkdsk and
hit enter.
If you want Chkdsk to automatically fix errors,
type: chkdsk/f in the command box. Running Chkdsk
using the command prompt doesn't require a re-boot.
Disk error checking is oftentimes started
automatically by Windows if an error occurred and
shut down the system. This can be annoying and
time-consuming but it does serve its purpose. As
tempting as it may be in this situation to skip it,
go ahead and let the error checking utility do its
job. You may avert data loss by performing this
preventative step.
Support >
How to fix Hard Disk
errors
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